RACE RELATIONS IN THE

CONTACT PERIOD.

1769-1830

Group at Te Aro pa c. 1830s

c Cook’s 1772 chart of his second voyage to New Zealand

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CONTENTS

1.1.1.1. Maori-Pakeha relations in the ‘contact period’

2. The World of the Maori – Pakeha 1800

3. The European exploitation of the natural and human resources of Aotearoa/New Zealand

4. The Australian ‘Connection’.

5. The Sealers.

6. The Whalers.

7. The Traders.

8. Intermediaries – Pakeha/Maori

9. The Missionaries.

10. Contact impact on Maori and their responses.

11. Papahurihia

12. The Boyd Incident

13. Musket Wars and Maori migration

14. New Zealand Before Annexation

15. Richard (Dicky) Barrett

16. Map of New Zealand showing tribal locations

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Maori/Pakeha Relations.

Key Question: How did relations between Maori and Pakeha develop and change in the period up to 1830?

Main Issues: Maori-Pakeha contact and interaction before 1840 – social,

economic, political and religious.

1. Maori-Pakeha relations in the ‘contact period’.

Introduction:

In 1800 New Zealand was overwhelmingly a ‘Maori world’. A handful of Europeans resided temporarily for a few

months while they exploited the natural and human resources on offer. They lived totally by favours extended to

them by their Maori hosts and exclusively on Maori terms. During the first four decades of the nineteenth

century – the New Zealand ‘Contact Period’ – the relationship between visitors and hosts began to change. By

1840, the dominant group felt it was necessary and expedient to enter into a formal relationship offered by the

leading group of Europeans who were now making permanent settlements and challenging the relationship

which had previously existed. This formal relationship was the Treaty of Waitangi. Several high profile incidents

in the period before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 gave the impression of poor race relations

between Maori and Pakeha. The British Resident from 1833, James Busby painted a picture of ‘extreme frontier

chaos’. The impact on Maori of contact with Pakeha before 1840 was a significant issue in the nineteenth

century.

Taming this ‘frontier of chaos’ became a concern of groups like Christian missionaries, and of men like James

Busby. More is known of their views and efforts because they took the time to record their experiences while

many other Europeans who were in daily contact with the Maori did not. These other Europeans, sometimes

known as intermediaries were, however, an important feature of contact in the period before the Treaty.

The Maori perspectives of this period rely on being retold through their contacts in the Pakeha world or through

oral sources which were committed to writing in a later generation. Accounts were flavoured by the background

and circumstances of the author as well as who were the intended audience. This particularly was the case with

the voluminous correspondences of the missionaries during the period.

2. The World of the Maori - Pakeha 1800.

Maori:

Tribal; regional; intensely competitive; exploitation of natural resources; oral traditions; social structure and cohesion based on ancestry.

• Use these key words in a paragraph about Maori in 1800. The more that you

can use the better your understanding.

The 125,000 Maori (approximate estimate) who inhabited the main islands of Aotearoa

were the descendants of the greatest and last wave of human migration. Their society was

tribally-based and was a lithic culture exploiting the natural resources of the land and sea.

Most Maori lived in the northern half of the North Island and were engaged in seasonal horticulture and harvesting protein from animals, birds and marine resources. They had a

precarious relationship with the land and this caused intense pressures which were expressed in tribal rivalry.

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European:

National; global; intensely competitive; exploitation of natural and manufactured local and foreign resources; age of scientific, cultural and technological discovery

impacting on how Europeans viewed themselves and the world…the age of global empires; social structure based on class and family connections.

The pre-1800 ‘Contact Period’ : exploration and discovery, conflict and ignorance

as New Zealand becomes part of the known world.

• Use these key words in a paragraph (on refill or in an email) about the European in 1800. The more words that you can use, the better your

understanding.

The experiences of the explorers Abel Tasman, James Cook and Marion du Fresne had convinced many

Europeans that New Zealand was a dangerous place. From the 1790s the arrival of sealing and whaling gangs

forged a new set of largely ad-hoc commercial interactions with Maori.

In the late 18th

. century some Europeans portrayed the Maori as the ‘noble savage’, but the great majority of

European visitors saw Maori society as vastly inferior to their own. Maori custom and practices were tolerated

because they were the majority and therefore it was prudent to do so. The early Europeans were in New

Zealand to make money, not to change Maori society, and it was acknowledged that challenging and disrupting

Maori society was not good for business. Some Europeans who lived with Maori, and some missionaries, gained

an appreciation of the intricacies of the Maori way of life, but most didn’t.

Important Maori values and practices that influenced interactions with Europeans.

Maori were quick to recognise the economic benefits of developing a positive working relationship with

Europeans. Acceptance of trade and European practices would be on Maori terms, and concepts of utu and

mana were central to this.

How Maori responded in the early contact period was determined by well-established customs and practices.

The notions of mana and tapu were the source of both order and dispute in Maori society and were practical

forces at work in everyday matters.

It is almost impossible to give mana a single meaning in English. A common explanation is to refer to it as

‘status’ or to describe someone with mana as having some sort of ‘presence’. Mana was inherited but

individuals could acquire, increase or lose mana through particular deeds or actions. Maori recognised the need

to maintain mana to the highest degree, especially amongst rangatira or chiefs. Mana influenced the way that

people and groups behaved, while acting as a reference point for achievements and successes. Maori vigorously

defended mana in everyday matters and tried to enhance it whenever possible. Sometimes the defence of

mana led to an excessive response to an action. (eg. Tribal conflicts and events like the ‘Boyd’ incident).

Control or patronage over European traders or, after 1814, missionaries was very much part of the pursuit of

mana. Maori spoke of many of the Europeans they developed a relationship with as ‘our Pakeha’ and if there

was some advantage to be gained through access to these new arrivals than a rival could not be allowed to reap

the benefits unchallenged.

Maori life was also restricted through the placing of tapu on people and things. Tapu controlled how people

behaved towards each other and the environment, and it protected people and natural resources.

Almost every activity, ceremonial or otherwise, was connected to the maintenance and enhancement of mana

and tapu. Crucial to this was the concept of utu. Although often defined as ‘revenge’, utu has a broader

meaning. It essentially aims to maintain balance and harmony within society. A wrong had to be put right, but

how this was done could vary greatly. Utu through gift exchange established and maintained social bonds and

obligations. If social relations were disturbed, utu would be a means of restoring balance. One form of utu was

muru, which involved the taking of personal property as compensation for an offence against an individual,

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community or society. Once muru was performed, the matter was considered to be ended. The nature of muru

would be determined by various factors, including the mana of the victim or offender, the degree of the offence

and the intent of the offending party.

If balance had not been restored, the response could become violent and a taua or hostile expedition might

become necessary. Even here there were levels of response: taua muru, a plundering expedition in which blood

was not shed; and taua ngaki mate or taua roto, meaning to seek blood for a death.

• What ideas in the above paragraphs could lead to tension or friction between Maori and Pakeha at this

time? Give an example of a possible scenario.

3. The European exploitation of the natural and human

resources of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

New Zealand: part of the global economy.

James Belich in Making Peoples described how in the 18

th. and 19

th. centuries, Europe exploded outwards in one

of the most incredible expansions in human history. This European explosion first impacted on New Zealand in

the closing decade of the 18th

. century when sealers and whalers began to arrive in their hundreds seeking to

exploit local resources.

The ‘Workable Accord’.

Europeans encountered a Maori world. Contact was regional in its nature; many Maori had no contact with

Europeans. Where contact did occur, Europeans had to work out a satisfactory arrangement with Maori, who

were often needed to provide local knowledge, food, resources, companionship, labour and, most important of

all, guarantee the newcomers’ safety. Maori were quick to recognise the economic benefits to be gained in

developing a relationship with these newcomers. In the main, race relations in the contact period were

remarkably free of conflict and violence between the races. There were exceptions when the view of the ‘violent

frontier of New Zealand’ was confirmed by interracial violence. However, as Judith Binney explains…both races

developed a ‘workable accord’ based on mutual understandings of the economic advantages in avoiding

violence. Maori came to understand that attacking European parties who offended them/stealing from them

caused trade to dry up as Europeans stayed away. Europeans realised that trade fraud towards Maori resulted in

the perpetrators being killed.

Europeans of all descriptions came to New Zealand at that time – Dutch, German, French, Russian, Spanish,

Portuguese, American as well as British. On board these vessels were occasionally Africans, Malay, Indians and

Chinese.

4.The Australian ‘Connection’. British Australia played a central role in the development of a European presence in New Zealand in the period

1790 to 1841. Indeed, colonial New Zealand was at first a dependency of New South Wales and the Australian

connection would remain strong throughout the 19th

. century.

• Botany Bay/Port Jackson was the hub of the NZ sealing and whaling industries.

• Individual and company traders sourced their goods and sold their purchases through the Botany Bay

markets.

• The earliest interracial commercial activity was on Norfolk Island involving Huru and Tuki in 1792

aiding the flax industry.

• Some of the earliest European settlers were escaped convicts from Australia like Charlotte Badger who

arrived in NZ in 1806.

• In time, NZ produce – grown, transported and sold by Maori would appear in Australian markets.

• A significant numbers of new migrants had come via the Australian colonies, especially during the

‘gold rushes’.

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• Australian colonies were important destinations for New Zealand’s resources like gold, timber, flax as

well as sealskins and whale oil.

• Imperial troops were sent initially from Australia in the conflicts of the mid-century.

• The Christian ‘Mission’ to New Zealand had a close connection with Australia through Marsden in

Parematta.

• Social experiences in Australia influenced the type of society New Zealand’s leaders put in place

Natives in Dusky Sound 1770s (lithograph: Cook’s second voyage: 1772)

5.The Sealers. (notes from Jock Phillips, ‘Sealing’ Te Ara –the Encyclopedia of New Zealand)

� Multinational groups in southern New Zealand; massive impact on seal populations in a short time; the

Botany Bay connection; little contact with Maori; sealskins for waterproof clothing; gangs living in rugged,

remote parts of southern New Zealand.

Maori and seals

� Seals had been an important resource for Maori and their hunting had caused the surviving New Zealand fur

seal colonies to be on the remote coasts of southern New Zealand – away from human habitation.

First exploitation

� Seals were killed for food, fur and oil by the earliest European explorers. In 1773, Cook anchored in Dusky

Sound, Fiordland where his crew killed and ate some seals. He wrote that the meat was as tasty as

beefsteak. Skins were used to repair rigging and seal oil was a fuel for lamps.

The Seal trade

� in Sydney/Botany Bay traders were looking for ways to pay for imports into the colony. Also empty ships

were leaving Sydney looking for a cargo. The London firm of Sam Enderby and Sons, who were active in

transporting convicts to the penal colony and had a license (to trade) from the (British) East India Company,

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arranged for the Britannia to drop a sealing gang in Dusky Sound in November 1792. They were to procure

skins for the China market to pay for tea. When the men were picked up in September 1793 they had

collected 4,500 skins, and also had built New Zealand’s first ship. However, the opening of the Bass Strait

rookeries in Australia in 1797 diminished the attraction of New Zealand.

� Sealing in New Zealand revived after 1803 when the Bass Strait rookeries were exhausted. Traders looked to

England, where fur seal was in demand for hats, and leather for shoes. Seal oil, especially from Elephant

seals, burned in lamps without smell or smoke and was also used in some industrial processes. Sealers tried

to keep their sealing locations secret from competitors, and were nervous about the legality of their

activities because of the East India Company’s monopoly in the area. It appears there was a rush to Dusky

Sound and the West Coast in 1803, mainly for skins. Two years later American sealers initiated a surge to

the Antipodes Islands, and to a lesser extent the Bounty and Auckland Islands. By 1808 the sealers were

back on the mainland, working around Foveaux Sound and Stewart Island. Two years later there was a rush

to Macquarie and Campbell Islands, largely for elephant seal oil rather than skins.

� Sealing dwindled from 1810 because of the destruction of most of the rookeries. In the 1820s the removal

of duties on colonial oil, a renewed demand for sealskins and a recovery of the rookeries revived demand,

and for a few years there was a new boom, which quickly faded. Sealers were now shore-based and

numbers of Maori were involved. Increasingly sealers supplemented their incomes with trade in flax,

potatoes and timber, and by the 1830s most had become traders or even whalers. Sealing survived only as

an off-season hobby of shore-based whalers.

The companies

� Most of the sealing done in New Zealand was organised by Sydney companies, nearly all founded by ex-

convicts such as Simeon Lord. A few American captains and ships were used, to avoid restrictions on British

traders applied by the East India Company, who had a monopoly on sealing in the area. The men were a

tough breed of ‘sea-rats’, some former sailors, others ex-convicts or stowaways.

� The Sealers. Sealers were paid on the basis of a ‘lay’, generally one-hundredth of the ‘take’ of the skins or

oil collected; but this did not normally bring a fortune. The life was tough. Gangs of six to eight men would

be left on coasts or islands for months at a time. One group survived on the bleak rock of Solander Island in

Foveaux Strait for four and a half years before rescue.

The conditions

� The men would live in caves, or under rocks or upturned boats. Swarms of rats were common. The men

were constantly wet, fresh water was scarce, they survived on dry cakes, seal meat, fish or sea birds, and

often suffered from scurvy because of a lack of vegetables.

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� There were two main killing seasons: October-November and April. The seals were clubbed to death, their

skins removed and dried in the sun before being salted. Hunting was dangerous, often done at night and on

slippery rocks, drowning was a real risk.

The legacy

� In the long term, sealing had more impact on the fate of seals than on the evolution of society in New

Zealand. But trade did bring over 30 ships to the south of New Zealand, and exposed Maori there to

European people and technology. A number of sealing gangs were attacked by Maori after 1810, but in

general the contact was harmonious. Some sealers like James Caddell joined the Maori community, while

others began trading from coastal settlements. Sealers were the first of the trans-Tasman communities of

hard itinerant men – the work gangs that played a significant role in establishing a footloose masculine

tradition in New Zealand, subsequently carried on by groups like whalers, goldminers and bushmen.

Sealers on Campbell Island, 1920s

6.The Whalers.

British and American fleets followed migratory routes of whales; shore and factory-ship based; seasonal work;

decades of involvement; significant relationship with local Maori; whale products for lighting fuel, oil, perfume

and bone by-products.

The products (Good question would be: Why were they hunted ?– Japanese restaurants? Whale steaks for

research?)

� Whales were hunted for their oil, baleen and ambergris. The oil was a high-quality smokeless lamp fuel and

machinery lubricant. Baleen is a bony structure which hangs inside the whale’s mouth to catch krill and

other food, and was used to make corsets and whips. Ambergris forms as a resinous substance in the

whale’s stomach and was an ingredient in expensive perfumes.

The first exploitation

� Maori did not hunt whales but exploited stranded whales which frequently washed up on beaches. The first

whaling ship, from America, came into New Zealand waters in 1791. Over the next 10 years New Zealand’s

waters became a popular and safe place to hunt the plentiful whales as they made their annual migrations

from the sub-Antarctic to the tropics and return. Whalers found New Zealand to be a convenient place to

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revictual their ships. In the 1830s, American and French whalers joined the British whalers exploiting the

cetaceans of New Zealand.

Methods of hunting

� There were two ways to catch whales:

� Ship whaling: the earliest whaling was done from ships. When a lookout spotted a whale from high up in the

mast, a boat boat would sail or row after it. The whalers threw a harpoon into the whale. The harpoon was

attached to a long rope, and the whale would drag the vessel until it became exhausted. The harpoonist

then speared the whale again to kill it. The whale was then towed to the ship to be cut up.

� Shore whaling: when lookouts on shore saw a whale migrating close to land, gangs of men jumped into their

boats and rowed out to it. They harpooned it, killed it and brought it back to shore.

� The blubber was flensed from the dead whale, placed into large metal tripots and boiled down to make oil.

Whaling in New Zealand waters c. 1805

� Origins of ship whaling

Whalers’ interest in the South Pacific as a hunting ground was first roused when British convicts were

brought to New South Wales and ships needed cargo for the return journey. The British government offered

money for whaling, in order to contribute to the training of seamen for the Royal navy, and enticed

Americans to join their fleet. It was an American captain, Eber Bunker of the British boat William and Ann,

who first hunted in New Zealand waters in December 1791. Over the next decade the area became

increasingly attractive as the East India Company’s monopoly on fishing in the South Pacific waters was

progressively lifted, and Governor Phillip King in New South Wales worked to attract whaling.

� The ship whaling

By 1801 King reported six ships whaling off the northeast coast of New Zealand. From 1804 the number of

whaling ships in the South Pacific grew, as the Napoleonic wars led to attacks on British whaleboats off the

South American coast. New Zealand offered whalers wood for fuel, timber for naval spars, flax for rope and

fresh water and vegetables to ward off scurvy. In 1810, 12 whaling ships were in New Zealand waters –

mainly British vessels sent out by London venture capitalists, but also a few American whalers from New

England, where Nantucket Island was a traditional whaling centre. The 1810s saw a downturn as the fleets

from Britain and America were caught up in the war between them. There was a revival of British whalers in

the 1820s and an increase in American whalers in the 1830s. On expeditions lasting about 3 years the

American boats of up to 500 tons often stopped in Kororareka for supplies, rest and recreation. The French

appeared in 1836, and a whaling captain, Jean Francois Langlois, organised the Nanto-Bordelaise Company

to settle Akaroa, with whaling as one of the purposes of the proposed French colony. From the early 1840s

fewer foreign whalers visited as whales became increasingly scarce and the new government in New

Zealand imposed duties and port charges.

� The whaling crews

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The crews were usually young, tough and truly international with Pacific Islanders and Maori (Ruatara 1807)

among the crew. Kept under tight discipline on board, they looked for and found fun ashore in places such

as Kororareka in the 1830s. In 1838 the Bay of Islands hosted 54 America ships along with 14 British, 18

French and 10 from Sydney. Whangaparaoa Peninsula and the Hokianga Harbour also attracted some.

Further south, some American whaling ships anchored at Cloudy Bay or Otago and Akaroa Harbours, where

they would hunt right whales close to shore in what was known as bay whaling.

Shore-based whaling This activity was underway by 1828 when Jacky Guard in Tory Channel and Peter Williams in Preservation

Inlet were successfully hunting right whales for oil. Shore whaling occurred for a number of reasons

including: the reduction of duties, lack of seals, shift from scarce sperm whales to the less valuable right

whales which were found inshore, the collapse of the Greenland fishery and shore-based whaling was

cheaper, safer and the oil was fresher.

Locations

Shore-based whalers hunted the black or right whale, which followed established migration routes around

the New Zealand coast with calving harbours.

Cook Strait was a major centre with six shore stations and 18 whaling ships at anchor by 1836. The Kapiti

region had six stations and 23 ships by 1839. There were whaling stations dotted from Fiordland around to

the Otago coast. Johnny Jones, a former convict and sealer, was an important figure in the South and at one

stage employed 280 men on seven stations. In Otago Harbour a Sydney-financed station in 1835 employed

85 men, caught 103 whales producing 248,300 litres of oil – despite competition from foreign bay whalers.

Otakou doubled as a trading centre purchasing potatoes, pigs and flax from Maori for sale to Sydney

merchants.

By 1840 there were up to 1,000 whalers in New Zealand and whaling led the country’s economy. New

stations appeared around Banks Peninsula, Kaikoura, Gisborne and Mahia. East coast stations continued

into the 1850s and 1860s, but by then the great days of shore whaling were over. More than 100 stations

had been set up and much wealth procured. Charles Heaphy claimed that over half of the 224,000 pounds

worth of whale oil exported from Sydney in 1840 had come from New Zealand. But the shore whalers

methods had been ruinous to a long-term industry.

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Payment Both ship and shore whalers were paid ‘lays’ – a proportion of the catch which varied according to the

importance of their role. On the Australian ship Wanstead, in 1832, the cooper received 1/95th

, the

harpooner 1/140th

and the ordinary seaman 1/200th

. On shore the eventual payout was often meagre

because the men were allowed to accrue debts for clothing, tobacco and spirits. The shore-based

community included carpenters, cooks, painters and a ‘tonguer’, who held rights to the whale’s tongue in

turn for dissecting the whale, and who often acted as an interpreter to Maori.

According to Edward Jerningham Wakefield, shore stations were also dependent on ‘Maori wives’ – Maori

helpmates for those who served for the season – who cooked, mended clothes and washed. Many whalers

married into local Maori communities – for companionship, protection and also to ensure good relations

with the local Maori community.

Whaling culture The cosmopolitan nature of ship whalers was echoed onshore where runaway sailors and former convicts

mixed with sealers, Americans, and a considerable number of Maori. Especially at the end of the season,

shore whalers were prone to drunkenness and high spirits as they went on the spree. On-the-job whalers

were highly disciplined and respected the hierarchy of the community. Whaling was a distinctive world

and, like sealing, helped to establish the masculine traditions of New Zealand life.

The North Cape, New Zealand and Sperm Whale Fishery, c. 1810

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The impact of whaling on Maori Maori men were eager recruits for whaling ships, as replacements for crew who had deserted; whaling was

exciting and an opportunity to see the world. As early as 1804 a Maori was reported on board a whaler. Ruatara

was abandoned in London by a whaler in 1807. In 1826, British whaleboat owners reported that one vessel had

12 Maori crew, who had proved ‘orderly and powerful seamen’. At gala days in Hobart and Sydney Maori crews

participated in the whaleboat races. Maori quickly introduced these boats into village life in New Zealand.

Visiting whalers had a profound impact on Maori society. Especially in the Bay of Islands, whalers’ demands for

potatoes and pork provided an early trade opportunity for Maori. In return, whalers often supplied muskets and

alcohol, while their liaisons with Maori women further disrupted Maori society. On the positive side, it is said

that the modern kumara entered Maori horticulture as an American whaler’s sweet potato.

Shore whalers also depended on Maori for food and women. Many early whalers such as Dicky Barrett, Phillip

Tapsell and Jacky Love married into Maori families. Maori men became important whalers at shore stations,

comprising 40% of the shore whalers; in Otago they were 50%. Maori continued to whale in the later 19th

century, long after most of the shore whaling stations had closed. They did so not as a full-time occupation, but

as a seasonal activity alongside their agricultural work.

Notice that the words that are used are:

IMPACT, EFFECT, INFLUENCE

Whaling station, pourua (Porirua) c. 1830s

7. The Traders.

All Europeans: de facto traders; individuals working for companies trading

with Maori for flax, timber, curios in exchange for food, metal and fibre products, later muskets; precarious existence of traders: reaching a

‘workable accord’ with Maori often through marriage; the disruption to tribal society caused by the competition to trade with Europeans; the Sydney

connection.

• Start a paragraph with the sentence; ‘Traders encompassed a wide range of individuals and products for which a ‘workable accord’ was reached.

Individual traders were transported to New Zealand by their Sydney-based companies and deposited with

their trading goods to return a profit by exchanging European commodities like blankets, trinkets and iron

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ware for native goods like flax and curios. Traders were for all intenses abandoned on these hostile shores

and were at the mercy of the local tribes. Initially, Maori often plundered these trading goods but quickly

realised the economic and political advantage in securing a European in their area. Traders were often the

targets of intertribal rivalry and many married into a tribe to secure their safety (eg. Burns and Tapsell).

Some tribes migrated to make contact with coastal traders…to be able to compete for mana and also

adding to the dislocation of the tribal migrations and wars of the 1820-1830s. (eg. inland Arawa moved to

the coastal area around Maketu and caused conflict with the Ngai Te Rangi of Tauranga).

8. Intermediaries Pakeha/Maori

I landed without a house being ready, a complete stranger, not a white man to be seen, not one residing

within a hundred miles of me. The vessel only remained here for two days, when she sailed for the Bay of

Islands; therefore I was under the necessity of landing my trade in canoes, and leaving it in one of the chief’s

huts. So here I was amongst a set of cannibals, trusting wholly and solely to their mercy, not knowing the

moment when they might take my trade from me, and not only my trade, but my life. Directly I landed here,

the chief, whom I had particularly selected to trade with, left me; so I had the whole charge on my own

hands. I was obliged to carry my musket, and constantly sleep with it by my side; in fact I had to keep watch

all the time. Then, for the first time since I took my facet to visit New Zealand, I felt frightened at my

situation: I knew I was not sure my life an hour.

In the course of a few days my trading chief returned with a large quantity of flax: I traded with him by

giving him powder, muskets, shot, blankets, tobacco etc. I did all in my power to please the natives, who

were very soon delighted with me. I stopped here for nearly eleven months before I received any news from

my employer, when at last a vessel arrived from Sydney, sent down to receive the stock that I might have on

hand. At the time the ship arrived, it was a poor time for the trade in this place; so they had orders to take

away the trade…

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The natives, when they found the trade was going to be removed, grew quite cross; indeed they felt quite

inclined to plunder. On one occasion, a cask of powder was taken from a person – a native, who was in the

act of stealing it; but however he was detected, and severely punished according to their laws and habits.

At this time I was under the protection of a chief of the name of Awhawee, who had great regard for me;

the fact is, I had married his daughter, who, at the time the ship arrived was on the point of being confined.

The vessel soon after sailed, and I was left behind. Words cannot express in what state my feelings were:

suffice it to say, it would have been better if I had been dead. The ship which contained all my friends and

countrymen, leaving me at one side, and on the other, my wife, who would not quit her native country; and,

as she was on the point of lying-in, I could not bring myself to leave the country with the ship.

In two days after the vessel sailed, all the men belonging to the tribe, whose protection I was under, went to

cultivate their potatoe gardens, which are generally some distance from their pas, not expecting any danger

to occur to me, my wife, or any of the tribe who had remained at home, who were but few.

On the morning after the tribe went farming, as I have mentioned before; I was told by a person, who acted

as a servant of mine, that he had bad news for me: I asked him what it was, and he told me he had

overheard a conversation between some persons who came for the express purpose of seeing whether the

tribe was away or not, that they might be enabled to plunder the trade that I had. I did not conceive for a

moment that they intended to serve me so; but they were jealous of the tribe I had stopped with, whom

they imagined had advised me to send away the ship, and all the trade, as they had enough for themselves.

And for that reason they were determined to have all of the trade that was left behind for themselves, or die

in the attempt. This intelligence gave me a great deal of uneasiness. I had ventured much for what little I

had – I had struggled hard for it by night and day: and for that reason I was determined I would perish in its

defence.

I acquainted my chief with the affair: he began to cry when I spoke to him about it, and told me that his

tribe was so far distant, that it would be no use trying to defend the property I had, for it would certainly be

taken from me, and not only that but very likely my life. The only plan that he advised was for me to get a

large war canoe, and take the best part of my trade with me, and proceed to Poverty Bay, where I could be

protected by his friends. (Barnet Burns’ host tribe was defeated. He was captured and while a prisoner was

given a partial moko (facial tattoo) which he later had completed for these reasons:)

In fact, I thought within myself, as one part of my face was disfigured, I might as well have it done

completely, particularly as it would be of service to me – and so it was. In the first place, I could travel to

any part of the country, amongst my friends, if I thought proper. I was made and considered chief of a tribe

of upwards of six hundred persons, consisting of men, women, and children. I could purchase flax when

others could not. In fact, I was as well liked amongst the rest of the chiefs, as though I had been their

brother.

from Barnet Burns, ‘A Brief Narrative of a New Zealand Chief.’ University of Otago reprint, 1970

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Barnet Burns

9. The Missionaries. ‘The sealers, whalers and traders had no other mission in New Zealand than to exploit the resources of land

and sea. They did not actively seek to change Maori society. The missionaries did.’ Claudia Orange

Missionary activity was an important aspect of the late eighteenth/nineteenth century Christian evangelical

revival in Europe. Christian groups actively sought converts within their own countries and among the

‘heathen’ overseas. Missionaries were active in the South Pacific and came to New Zealand as a result of the

friendship between the chaplain to the Botany Bay convict settlement, Samuel Marsden and the Nga Puhi

chief, Ruatara. They met on a ship sailing from London to New South Wales. Ruatara had been abandoned by

his whaling ship in London in 1807 and Marsden realised that for the ‘Mission’ to New Zealand to have any

chance of success it needed the patronage of a New Zealand chief. Ruatara became the key to the

evangelising in New Zealand. The burning of the “Boyd” in 1809 delayed Marsden’s mission to New Zealand

until 1814. Every Christian denomination had its own missionaries and mission and the Anglican’s Church

Mission Society (CMS) dominated evangelism in early New Zealand. The Anglican London Mission Society, the

Wesleyans (Methodists) in the 1820s and (French) Roman Catholics in the 1830s were also active.

Missionaries who came to New Zealand wanted to change Maori behaviour and culture. To them New

Zealand was a ‘stronghold of Satan’ (Marsden) and Maori souls were to be saved. Marsden believed that

Christian salvation could be achieved through ‘civilisation’, that is the Maori would have to advanced from

base savagery before he could become a Christian.

A first step in this transformation was to ‘addict’ Maori to European trade items. Once Maori were

dependent on these, missionaries would be in a position to influence their behaviour. So the missionary

societies selected people with suitable skills to send to New Zealand. For example, the missionary Hall was a

carpenter and Kendall a linguist and agriculturalist. They could teach Maori how to use the new trade items.

Ruatara was a guest in Marsden’s home in Parematta for many months and learnt farming skills. When he

returned to Northland, Marsden gave Ruatara gifts of seed, plants and livestock as well as agricultural tools.

In addition, the Protestant missions aimed to send missionaries with families; partly to serve as a living

depiction of a Christian family and partly to avoid what the Church regarded as undesirable sexual liason

between missionary and Maori. Not all missionaries succeeded in fulfilling their Church’s aim in this respect

(Kendall, and later Colenso), but those who did provided another way in which missionaries differed from

early European traders in their interaction with their Maori hosts.

As the early missionaries encountered different aspects of that still viable Maori culture, they did not view

them, as did Marion du Fresne and one or two other explorers, as interesting facets of a different way of life,

a social system adapted by a Polynesian race in the New Zealand environment. Instead, the missionaries

began a process of viewing the Maori people through eurocentric spectacles. Regarding their own values as

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Universal Truths, as part of the Divine plan of Providence for the Progress of Civilisation and Christianity, most

missionaries were incapable of seeing the values of Protestant early-Victorian lower middle-class Britain as

culturally derived.

The result was that New Zealand society in 1814 horrified them. Customs such as cannibalism, infanticide and

pre-marital sex led William Williams to say that ‘Satan had obtained a strong hold on the people, and led

them captive at his will… Their natural heart,’ he continued, ‘is enmity against God.’ All of their customs which

did not accord with Christian piety were regarded as ‘iniquities’ (Taylor, 1839), their natures were considered

‘depraved’ (Buller, 1878), or ‘polluted’ (MacDougall, 1899).

A later chronicler of early missionary activity was horrified not so much by their killing, roasting and eating

little children, but by the fact that they could it ‘without feeling of remorse’. He quoted one unnamed

missionary as having said, ‘A full description of their everyday life would shock the moral sensibilities of

English readers…’

In missionary terms, Maori culture in its entirety had to be destroyed before the Maori could be ‘saved’ by the

gift of Christian civilisation. Missionaries, therefore, did not discourage only cannibalism, infanticide and

warfare, but also the socially productive institutions of reciprocal feast-giving, marriage customs, art forms

such as carving (they considered the subjects as indelicate or pagan), chants and karakia, ceremonies of social

contact such as the war dance (obviously Satanic), and Maori modes of dress and adornment. Even the tribal

or subtribal community was to be disintegrated. In a move that was increasingly typical, the missionary

Ashwell influenced his converts at Otawhao to build a separate pa for themselves, in which no man guilty of

breaking the commandments should be permitted to reside, and in which ‘tatooing, disfiguring of the face

and all their ancient customs shd. be abolished forever.’(Ashwell MS, n.d, entry for 27 October , 1839).

The content of Maori thought came in for its share of derogation. Maori creation myths were found to be

‘very strange and amusing’, (MacDougall, 1899), tapu ‘notions’ as ‘absurd as they are amusing’, and ‘their

superstitions…in general most absurd and extravagant’. (Angas, 1847) That the beliefs of Christianity were

based on myths just as ‘absurd’ and ‘unreasonable’, from a secular point of view, was not the kind of thinking

to which the missionaries were accustomed. To them their own myths were unassailable, firstly because they

were written down, and secondly because their mysteries were inspired by God and therefore true and holy.

To the Maori their own creation myths expressed mysteries equally valid and tapu, and they had perfected a

method of handing down their sacred knowledge so that it retained its validity from generation to generation.

Nevertheless, when the missionary myths were brought into contact with those of the Maori people, the

missionaries presumed that their own would prevail because they were theirs, and therefore ‘true’. O Maori

legends they said, and taught, ‘Their legends are very strange and amusing, especially those that tell how the

heavens and the earth, moon, stars and sun, came into existence.’ (MacDougall, 1899)

From Angela Ballara, ‘Proud to be White? A Survey of Pakeha Prejudice in New Zealand’ Auckland, 1986, pp

8-13

17

Rangihoua mission

Kendall with chiefs Hongi Hika and Waikato c.1820

18

Samuel Marsden c. 1830s

10. Contact impact on Maori and their responses. � Evidence of Maori Adaptation:

In the early nineteenth century Maori society was characterised by intense tribal competition for

resources. Thus Maori society was quickly alive to the possibilities of commerce with Europeans. The

new goods, skills and technologies were adapted to fit into the traditional Maori goals.

Maori in localities frequented by Europeans quickly moved from subsistence horticulture and food

gathering to agricultural production for the express purpose of trade. Trade with Europeans led to

significant changes in the scale of Maori economic activity. These included goods and services which

were new to Maori such as potatoes, grain, pigs and prostitutes. There was also a demand for

traditional Maori products like flax fibre and artefacts which had to be available in larger quantities. It

was not only the Europeans who came to New Zealand’s shores that Maori saw as trading partners;

they also took advantage of opportunities in the wider European world and traded produce with New

South Wales in the early Contact Period.

Tribal migrations, dislocation and warfare resulted from inland tribes seeking to make contact with

coastal Europeans…eg. Tuhoe and Arawa fought their way to the East Coast, Ngati Maniapoto sought

access to West Coast harbours.

Some goods had special qualities, possibly because of their physical properties, eg. watches, wax, axes

and muskets.

Maori adopted the new food plants for exchange, not for consumption. New plants were of an avid

interest for gifting…politics as well as consumption, eg. Marsden’s gifts to Ruatara, King’s gifts to Huru

and Tuki.

The colour ‘red’ had a special sacred significance among Maori. Traders soon realised that red blankets

sold at a higher premium and were worn on special occasions. Red sealing wax was stolen to be

displayed to rivals.

Some contemporaries believed that the arrival of the new less labour-intensive foodstuffs and

technologies would improve Maori working conditions. They were wrong. The demand for the new

products saw an even greater labour effort by tribes eager to increase their mana. The acquisition and

command of the new resources for trade gave chiefs and their tribes their standing in the new culture.

Slavery took on a new dimension as tribes faced labour shortages and warfare was undertaken in the

pursuit of labour in the form of prisoners-of-war.

19

Slaves preparing food c.1828

French lithograph, village view, Kororareka 1840

20

Maori involvement in the new economy:

� Maori communities supported their women in forming relationships with European men. Prostitution was

an accepted medium of exchange.

� The timber trade in the North Island was undertaken as joint ventures between Maori chiefs and their

labour and traders.

� Maori formed the core of many whaling gangs and crewed both locally and internationally.

� A number of Maori who travelled abroad and acquired some understanding of English were used by the

communities as trade negotiators.

Half-castes in Pomare’s Pah c. 1836

The mutual desire for a ‘workable accord’, and an example of a breakdown of this relationship.

Claudia Orange suggests that the reason for the remarkably good race relations in the Contact Period stems from

the desire by both groups to create a mutually beneficial “workable accord”.

After the mistreatment of a Maori crew member of the sailing vessel The Boyd , Whangaroa Maori seeking utu

killed most of the 70 passengers and crew, looted and burnt the ship before a cannibalistic feast. It was probably

only the third vessel to visit Whangaroa Harbour. A previous vessel had departed leaving a disease which killed

many of the local people, making the Ngati Uru to believe that a curse had been place upon them. Whalers

avenged the attack (on the wrong group of Maori), leading to many more Maori deaths and sparking inter-tribal

warfare in the region. It delayed the establishment of the first Christian mission in New Zealand, and in

cementing ideas about New Zealand as the ‘Cannibal Isles’, it also challenged the notion of Maori as the ‘noble

race’. The incident also provoked vigorous debate among officials in New South Wales about how to maintain

law and order in New Zealand. In response, European shipping avoided New Zealand for a time. Deprived of the

goods and opportunities they desired, Maori recognised the interdependent nature of their relationship with

Europeans and the need to ensure a ‘workable accord’.

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Contemporary account of the attack on the ‘Boyd

The pursuit of Europeans as possessions in the quest for mana.

Europeans… An important resource energetically sought by Maori were Europeans who would live

under the patronage of a chief. Europeans were sought for the skills they could impart such as

agriculture, blacksmithing and animal husbandry and also because their presence in a Maori community

attracted trade…other Europeans would come as it was considered safe… a reason for inviting

missionaries to settle.

� The impact of the ‘Mission’ on the Maori.

During the initial period from Marsden’s arrival and Christmas message in 1814 (setting up the

Mission’s presence at Rangihoua), and the mid 1820s the missionaries existed in a Maori world on

Maori terms. They were dependent upon their hosts for everything…food, land and protection. The

missionaries were acutely aware of their position as guests of the Maori and their correspondence is

full of their desire for independence from their hosts and their host’s reluctance to take their advice.

During this period the incompatibility and personal unsuitability of most of the missionaries and their

wives to their new situation negatively impacted on the success of the mission. In the 1820s, Henry

Williams and later Bishop Selwyn brought the resolve and discipline needed for the Mission to succeed.

For Maori, the Christian philosophy initially had neither power nor mana. As the culturally dominant

group, Maori could get the material goods they wanted from the missionaries (and other Europeans)

without adopting their religion. Hongi Hika of Nga Puhi derided Christianity as the religion of ‘slaves and

not warriors’. (Hongi had used his trip to England with Kendall (to help create a Maori dictionary) to

equip himself with European firearms).

From the Maori point of view, missionaries were there to suit their purposes which were to attract

trade, impart skills and enhance their mana. The power balance in the Maori-missionary relationship

was commented upon by Francis Hall in 1821: ‘The Natives have been casting Balls all day in Mr Kemps

Shop – They come in when they please, and do what they please and take away what they please’.

Maori had this power because of the missionaries depended upon them for food and protection. Also

missionaries had little understanding of te reo. Their dependency meant that some were forced to

repair and trade in guns. Hongi demanded of the Mission that the next missionary sent to him should

be able to ‘repair guns’.

The period of the mid 1820s to 1840 saw the first conversions of the Maori to Christianity and by 1840

missions recorded 3,000 baptisms from a probable population of 90,000 Maori. Traditional

historiography in the 19th

. and early 20th

. centuries explained this phenomenon in two ways. It was a

triumph of ‘God’s will’ and also a product of Henry Williams’ leadership of the Church Mission Society.

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Historiography

Since the 1950s the nature of the Maori response to Christianity has been debated by the historians Harrison

Wright, JM Owens and Judith Binney. A key point on which they differ is the extent to which Maori chose

Christianity.

• Harrison Wright, writing in 1959, argues from a eurocentric point of view. According to him, te pu and

crisis like European diseases resulted in Maori confusion and a lack of confidence in their own culture.

He sees this, combined with more effective missionary strategies, as the impetus for Maori becoming

Christian – almost by default.

• J M Owens, writing in 1968 and revised at later dates, also argues from a eurocentric point of view. He

emphasises that as missionaries achieved greater independence from their hosts, they also achieved

success in their primary objective – Maori conversions to Christianity. This success derived from the

leadership qualities of Henry Williams, missionaries’ increasing knowledge of te reo Maori, their ability

to trade independently using their own vessel the ‘Herald’, their emphasis on Maori literacy and the

printing of religious tracts in Maori (Colenso: mission printer). As a result, Owens argues, Maori

experienced a ‘cumulative awareness’ of Christianity and accepted this religion.

• Judith Binney, writing in 1969, argues from a basis of Maori as decision-makers. She sees Maori as

actively choosing Christianity. Weary of war, many liked the images presented by the missionary

peacemakers of Christ as Prince of Peace. Moreover, in seeking mana through the acquisition of

literacy skills from the missionaries, many responded positively to the Christian ideas in the books they

studied.

There are several common pieces of evidence that appear to contradict the Acculturation Theory.

Revisionist historians deal with them in the following ways:

� Muskets

Once muskets were introduced into traditional Maori warfare, tribal survival depended on their

acquisition and use. For a period during the 1820s, musket warfare decimated the Maori population -

by some estimates 80,000 died. However, as the revisionist historian Judith Binney argues, by the late

1830s a ‘balance of terror’ led Maori to abandon this means of pursuing mana.

• Alcohol

Alcohol was initially spurned by Maori as ‘waipiro’ or ‘stinking waters’. Later, it had a negative impact

on some of the communities who used it. For instance, birth and infant mortality rates were adversely

affected. Revisionist historians point to the number of communities who subsequently took steps to

control their members’ access to alcohol.

� European diseases

According to the demographer Ian Pool the sudden increase in Maori mortality that occurred with

European contact was the result of introduced diseases on an ‘immunologically virgin’ population.

These diseases included influenza, chicken pox, measles, veneral diseases and whooping cough. Many

communities who had never witnessed a European were decimated by measles and influenza in the

first decade of the nineteenth century, often through contact with a person who was returning from

trading. Veneral diseases were a consequence of the booming sex trade which was occurred in the Bay

of Islands in the 1830s, whereby Maori used the sexual services of their women folk as a medium of

exchange. (2 weeks services equalled one musket).

Revisionist historians point out that despite this apparent ‘fatal impact’ Maori were still culturally and

numerically dominant during the early contact period.

Examples of Maori adaptation to Christianity.

Christianity, like commerce, was adapted into Maori ways of life as part of the wider process of acculturation.

• Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua converted to Christianity in 1836 and

founded a Christian community at Tapiri, near Matamata. By 1846 he was the head of the Ngati

Haua and had created an effective system of local government adapted from the Ten

Commandments. Wiremu Tamihana would play a pivotal role as Kingitanga’s most effective

commander in the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s.

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• Papahurihia was a religious movement that emerged in the Hokianga district in the 1820s. Its

leader, the prophet Te Atua Wera, combined elements of Christian teaching with existing Maori

beliefs. It is an example of an adjustment or acculturation cult. Such movements are common when

one culture is subject to sudden and extensive change as a result of meeting another. Papahurihia

was evidence of Maori adapting Christianity to the context of their own lives in an attempt to

accommodate such a period of extreme change.

French lithograph of Maori village in Bay of Islands, 1840

11 .Papahurihia,

Papahurihia, also known as Te Atua Wera, was a renowned Nga Puhi tohunga. He belonged to both Te

Hikutu and Ngati Hau hapu.

His descent is traced from matakite, those who possess visionary powers. Taimania, a woman famous for

these powers, appears variously in the narrative accounts as ancestor, wife and mother. His father, Te

Whareti, also possessed strange powers, including the ability to cover vast distances in an instant. Tuhoehoe,

his mother, according to the whakapapa, was considered to be a woman with magical powers.

Papahurihia first appears in the written historical record in the early 1830s, when two missionaries

encountered his new religion. Richard Davis in 1833 met people at Taiamai, in the Bay of Islands, who had

begun to worship a new god, called Papahurihia; and Henry Williams gave the first clear description in 1834:

he noted that the people used the name Nakahi, which he identified with the serpent in Genesis 3:1, and also

Papahurihia, one 'who relates wonders'. He went on: 'They observe a Sabbath, but not with us, as it is on the

Saturday - they have services and baptism and profess to know the scriptures.' This name was used both of

the god of the new faith and of the man who founded it.

Papahurihia's early teachings in the Bay of Islands and Hokianga identified the Maori as Hurai, or Jews. His

followers worshipped on Saturday, hoisted a flag and assembled at night. He claimed the power to converse

with the dead, and he was a ventriloquist, able to throw his voice in many directions and create a strange

'whistling sighing' sound as the spirits spoke. A settler, John Webster, who attended a ceremony which

Papahurihia held for Hone Heke in 1845, said that the sound 'moved about in a mysterious manner,

sometimes a fluttering, and I thought that something actually touched me.'

Papahurihia's identification of the Maori with the Jews, and his use of the biblical serpent, Nakahi, as his aria,

or familiar spirit, became important beliefs among Maori people. As Jews his followers were not Christians,

but they were the chosen of God. Nakahi was not only the serpent in Genesis; it was also the fiery serpent on

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the rod carried by Moses, who promised life to the Israelites while they were in the wilderness. In the New

Testament the serpent was used as a symbol of Christ.

His biblical knowledge could have been derived from the Anglican mission services at Rangihoua and Te

Puna, where he was described in 1834 as a principal figure and a rangatira. He could read Maori, and the

New Testament passage about the serpent (John 3:14--15) was in one of the first parts of the Bible printed in

Maori. At the same time Nakahi resembled the aria traditionally called on by tohunga. Lizards were much

feared, for they were seen as messengers between the spiritual and human worlds.

Papahurihia began his teaching among Te Hikutu living at Te Puna, and his message soon spread through the

Bay of Islands. He moved to Hokianga where the Wesleyans and later the Catholics encountered his

doctrines. He and the Wesleyan missionary William White held a debate at Waima in April 1835, before an

audience White thought numbered between 3,000 and 4,000. To White the great 'blasphemy' was believing

that Papahurihia and Jesus Christ were equal.

By 1837 Papahurihia had adopted the name Te Atua Wera. In that year Kaitoke, a leader of Te Hikutu, killed

two Wesleyan converts, Matiu and Rihimona, who were preaching in his village in the Mangamuka district. A

visitor, George Hawke, wrote that Kaitoke had been inspired by a religion which was 'inveterate against

christians', the leader of which had taken the name Te Atua Wera, and referred to his god as Papahurihia.

This leader used ventriloquism, and had made a great number of converts.

Te Atua Wera, the fiery god, became a formidable leader and prophet. Kaitoke professed that he had been

confident of victory because Te Atua Wera had given him a cask of powder and a musket. As long as he

possessed them he would not be hit by enemy fire, and would be sure to find his target. This weapon, with

red hieroglyphic writing placed on it by Te Atua Wera, was conceivably used in the ritual killing of the

Wesleyan preachers.

The prophet and his Te Hikutu followers, Kaitoke and Waikato of Te Puna, hated the Protestant missionaries;

they were said to be murderers, causing many deaths through witchcraft. From the beginning Papahurihia

had taught that the missionaries would be burned in the fire of Satan, and his followers would enter an

afterlife in a land of happiness. The Catholic missionary Louis Catherin Servant said that this would be a land

in which there was neither cold, nor hunger or thirst: 'you enjoy unending light. Everything is found in plenty,

flour, sugar, guns, ships; there too murder and sensual pleasure reign.' The afterlife became a world of

earthly delights, much better than the Protestant heaven, which Papahurihia had described as little better

than hell, because its inhabitants had 'nothing but books to eat'.

In the course of a tribal war in 1843 at Oruru, a large comet appeared in the sky for a month, its tail sweeping

across the horizon. Te Atua Wera explained its presence as an omen of war, sickness and death, and claimed

that it was under his control. Comets and meteors had been interpreted previously as manifestations of

gods; thereafter the long-tailed comet was associated with Papahurihia in the oral traditions of Hokianga.

In 1845 he became Hone Heke's war tohunga. When Heke was entrenched at Puketutu in May, after his

fourth assault on the flagstaff at Kororareka (Russell), he consulted Te Atua Wera because he was considered

to be the leading tohunga of Nga Puhi. According to the account left by Frederick Maning, Nakahi spoke in

the night to Heke and his people through the mouth of the prophet: 'Be brave and strong, and patient. Fear

not the soldiers; they will not be able to take this fort - neither be you afraid of all those different kinds of big

guns you have heard so much talk of. I will turn aside the shot, and they shall do you no harm; but this pa and

its defenders must be made sacred (tapu). You must particularly observe all the sacred rites and customs of

your ancestors; if you neglect this in the smallest particular, evil will befall you, and I also shall desert you.

You who pray to the god of the missionaries, continue to do so, and in your praying see you make no

mistakes. Fight and pray. Touch not the spoils of the slain, abstain from human flesh, lest the European god

should be angry, and be careful not to offend the Maori gods. It is good to have more than one god to trust

to.'

In Maning's half-mocking account Heke and his warriors remained protected as long as they observed Te

Atua Wera's instructions. Nakahi blew aside the fire of the besiegers' Congreve rocket at Puketutu. But

Heke's defeat came at Te Ahuahu in June, when he forgot the warning. Besieged by Makoare Te Taonui, in

the midst of the fighting Heke took a cartridge box from a dead man. As he ran he saw Te Atua Wera

standing on the path trying to rally the fleeing defenders with his mere. When the tohunga saw the blood on

the box, he knew that the spirits of the ancestors were now against them and that Heke was no longer

invulnerable. Heke was wounded, and all that Te Atua Wera could do was to make his bearers invisible to the

enemy so that they could carry their leader away safely. This was a traditional tohunga's skill.

25

In July of the same year Te Atua Wera was present at the siege of Ohaeawai. Lieutenant George Phillpotts

was killed and his scalp brought to the tohunga to read the omens. He also composed a song of exultation

which foretold victory. It was sung with fearful effect when the troops were repulsed from Ohaeawai.

And I will empty my bowels upon them! Fight, fight!

Fight in the valley,

They are all exposed there

Fight.

You will not return to your village,

To Europe,

Because of the driving force of the fighters.

On Jesus Christ,

And the Book,

I will turn my back,

Te Atua Wera was acting as a traditional war tohunga. The word of the god came forth in his sleep as a

vision to be fulfilled. Nakahi appeared and disappeared as a flash of light, and intervened on behalf of the

warriors as long as they obeyed the rules the tohunga had laid down. The new element in these teachings

was the hatred of the Scriptures and of Christ.

After the war Papahurihia lived a little upriver from the main Omanaia settlement. There John Webster

visited him regularly. He described him in 1847 as 'a fine looking intelligent young man about 33 or 4…fully

tatooed', a prophet and a man of high repute. Webster called him Te Atua Wera (or Wero in his spelling) but

he also said that he was known as Papahurihia or Papa. Webster found him living near Omanaia in a large

raupo house which could hold 100 people, with muskets of every size and date of manufacture ranged

around the inner walls, some of them very old. In the corner was a raised sleeping place with curtains, where

Papahurihia spoke with the spirits of the other world.

The Catholic priest Maxime Petit was also a regular visitor around this time. Catholic missionaries felt that Te

Atua Wera (the name they always used) preferred them to the Protestants. It is possible that the tohunga

borrowed some elements of his teaching from them. They had likened their church to the tree trunk and the

Protestants to its thin curving branches. As early as 1834 the tohunga had taught that only his followers

could ascend the straight tree to the sky. The unbelievers travelled on a curved tree and fell into an abyss

filled with a fire Nakahi had lit. In many Maori communities the Catholic faith was accepted by those opposed

to British authority and to Protestant hapu; a number of Te Hikutu were Catholic converts. Te Atua Wera's

apparent sympathy was in keeping with his rejection of the Protestants.

Te Atua Wera was considered a wealthy man in the 1840s, a time of general poverty in Hokianga. John

Warren, the Wesleyan missionary at Waima, knew him well and visited him often at Rawene. He commented

in 1853 on the amount of property in horses and cattle he had amassed, by what Warren considered

'jugglery'. But he added: 'His business is now greatly in decline; and to do him justice I do not think he is sorry

for it.' Many of his people were being baptised into the Wesleyan Church. Te Atua Wera told Warren that it

was 'with his full consent and approval, and that he is only waiting to see whether christianity makes them

less quarrelsome among themselves, and more respectful to him as their chief, and if so, he shall quickly

follow in their train.

In 1856 Papahurihia was converted to Christianity by Aperahama Taonui, a Wesleyan convert; he was

baptised by the Wesleyan missionary Thomas Buddle, and took the name Penetana. After his baptism he

formally married Kikihu. He was still living at Rawene in 1859, on the south-west side of Herd's Point at Te

Raupo. Here he had a school of learning, which was later associated with Aperahama Taonui. He was

appointed a warden of police and an assessor by the government in 1861. He disapproved of the Pai Marire

religious movement. A government report in 1866 said that although he was not a major chief he was 'the

most influential man in this District', Hokianga. He was also believed to be loyal to the government.

As a visionary Papahurihia was frequently consulted by Maori throughout his life. In 1863, as the wars were

spreading, he was asked about the outcome in Taranaki and Waikato, for rumours were circulating that the

'Europeans intended to exterminate the Maori people, and occupy their Lands'. He held a meeting in a large

dwelling where he conversed with the spirits of the dead. He predicted sagely that the war would end 'in a

kind of drawn game, between the Europeans and the Maori people'.

In 1870 he was among the Hokianga leaders welcoming the governor, G. F. Bowen, on his visit to the north.

He greeted him with a dream: 'I dreamt before the coming of Governor Brown[e] that a black man had taken

26

a feather out of my hair, and I told the Governor.' What Bowen made of this is not recorded; it was perhaps a

statement of loss of authority.

He died on 3 November 1875 and was buried at Omanaia by a Wesleyan minister, William Rowse. He was

survived by Kikihu and Heene Whakarongohau. The photograph taken at his tangi shows him as a man with

fine features and delicate bones, and with a moko on his cheeks and chin. His gravestone was erected in

1879 by the government. There is a tradition that the stone would not accept the direction in which it was

placed, and turned itself around to the north and Te Rerenga Wairua.

After Papahurihia's death, Aperahama Taonui was acclaimed as his successor, at Omanaia in March 1880.

Both men were listed by John White as tohunga from the Mamari canoe tradition, who were among his

informants for The ancient history of the Maori, published between 1887 and 1890. Te Atua Wera also lived

on as an ancestral spirit summoned up in seances. His advice was asked in the Dog Tax War at Waima in 1898

by the new medium, Hone Toia, whose cult was known as Whiowhio, the whistling cult, because, as before,

Nakahi spoke in a strange, whistling voice. Followers of Papahurihia and the Whiowhio movement remain

today in the Omanaia and Whirinaki districts. Nakahi is feared as an omen of death, his manifestation often

being described as a hairy hand on the shoulder. Papahurihia has also entered the Pakeha literary

imagination through the writings of Frederick Maning and Kendrick Smithyman's 'Night riding and other

Papahurihia poems', published in 1986.

Papahurihia was a traditional Maori seer and tohunga. There is no evidence that his movement took a

millennial form at any stage, although it has mostly been interpreted in this way. Nor is there any evidence

that he claimed to raise the dead. He claimed only to be able to speak with them, as his tohunga predecessors

had done.

Written by: JUDITH BINNEY in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

In Summary:

1. In what way is Papahurihia a synthesis of traditional Maori beliefs and introduced Christian ideas?

2. What in Papahurihia’s background encourages him and others to accept his teachings?

3. Papahurihia’s connection with the biblical Jews sets him apart from other converts. What Jewish

elements does he include into his teachings? Why might he (and others) relate to the biblical Jews?

4. Consider why Papahurihia has a particular hatred of (Protestant) missionaries…why them?

5. How did Papahurihia initially interact with Christian missionaries, what were their thoughts of him?

6. In Maning’s account of Papahurihia’s words…what is revealed about the prophet’s religious views?

7. Papahurihia becomes a traditional war tohunga in the 1840s…how does he seek to protect his people?

8. Suggest why Papahurihia converted to Christianity later in life… how did he remain a link between two worlds?

How do Christians relate to him in his later life? (eg. Catholics)

27

9. What does a study of Papahurihia’s life and times reveal about changes to Maori society in the 19th

. century?

10. How has Te Atua Wera continued to live on among Maori?

12 The Burning of the Boyd In December 1809 the sailing ship Boyd was anchored in Whangaroa Harbour, where it was to pick up a

cargo of timber spars. It was attacked by a group of Māori who killed most of the crew and passengers in

retaliation for the captain’s mistreatment of a young local chief, Te Ara, who had sailed from Sydney on the

Boyd.

T

This was the most violent clash between Māori and Europeans since the attack on Marion du Fresne and his crew

in 1772. The incident had far-reaching effects. It delayed the establishment of the first Christian mission in New

Zealand, cemented a view of New Zealand as the ‘Cannibal Isles’ and challenged the notion that Māori were

‘noble savages’.

European whalers avenged the attack, killing many Māori and sparking intertribal warfare in the region. The

incident also provoked vigorous debate among officials in New South Wales about how to maintain order in New

Zealand.

Why was the Boyd attacked?

Often referred to as the ‘Boyd Massacre’ or the ‘Burning of the Boyd’, the incident was dismissed as an act of

Māori barbarism. From this perspective, there was little need to examine Māori motives. The event was etched

into New Zealand folklore by European artists several generations after the actual attack. Their romanticised and

often inaccurate portrayals embedded the incident in a frontier context resembling North America’s Wild West.

Under the command of Captain John Thompson, the Boyd left Port Jackson (Sydney) in October 1809 and arrived

in Whangaroa Harbour in the far north to load a cargo of kauri spars. It was probably only the third European

ship to visit Whangaroa. A year earlier, the crew of the Commerce had caused an outbreak of disease that killed a

number of Māori. Ngāti Uru believed that a curse had been placed on them and viewed the next European

visitors, those on the Boyd, with apprehension and suspicion. For his part, this was to be Captain Thompson’s

first – and last – encounter with Māori.

Utu is taken

Among the 70 people on board the Boyd was Te Ara, the son of a Whangaroa chief. Te Ara had been expected to

work his passage as a seaman, but he ignored orders. He may have been ill, or, as the son of a chief, he may have

believed that such work was beneath him. Whatever his reasons, he was flogged and denied food. When he

arrived home and reported this mistreatment, his kin demanded utu.

Unaware of local feelings, Thompson and several crew members left the ship with a group of Māori to check out

a stand of kauri further up the harbour. Once ashore they were killed and eaten. At dusk some Māori disguised

themselves as the returning shore party while other warriors waited in canoes for the signal to attack. The

assault was swift and decisive. Most of the Europeans were killed that evening, although a number escaped by

climbing up into the ship’s rigging.

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Te Pahi arrives

The next morning a large canoe entered the harbour carrying Te Pahi, a prominent chief from Rangihoua in the

Bay of Islands who supported trade with Europeans and had visited Sydney in 1805. Shocked by what he found,

he tried to rescue the frightened Europeans still clinging to the ship’s rigging. However, Te Ara’s relatives thought

the matter none of Te Pahi’s business and killed most of the survivors. In a classic case of mistaken identity,

Europeans would later blame Te Pahi for the tragedy.

The Boyd was then towed up the harbour towards Te Ara’s village and grounded on mudflats near Motu Wai

(Red Island). The ship was pillaged of its cargo, with muskets and gunpowder being especially prized booty.

During the pillaging a musket flint ignited the gunpowder on board, causing a massive explosion that killed a

number of Māori, including Te Ara’s father. Fire soon spread to casks of inflammable whale oil, and the Boyd

burned down to the waterline.

Survivors

Several Europeans survived both the initial attack and its immediate aftermath. They included Thom Davis (the

ship’s cabin boy), Ann Morley and her baby, and two-year-old Betsey Broughton, who was taken by a local chief.

Thom was spared because he had tended to Te Ara after his flogging and had smuggled food to him. The second

mate was put to work making fish-hooks from barrel hoops, but when he proved incompetent at this task he was

killed and eaten.

European utu

Rumours of the incident reached the Bay of Islands, and three weeks later the City of Edinburgh and other vessels

to investigate. A Māori chief from the Bay of Islands who accompanied the European force negotiated the return

of Ann Morley, her baby and Thom Davis. The taking of hostages secured the release of Betsey Broughton after a

short delay.

Asked why they had attacked the ship, some of those involved said that the captain was a ‘bad man’. The whalers

present blamed Te Pahi for the incident, even though the real perpetrators declared his innocence. Te Pahi’s pā,

Te Puna, was destroyed by the European sailors, with considerable loss of Māori life.

This action resulted in civil war breaking out in the region, and in a final cruel irony, Te Pahi died of wounds

received in battle in 1810. When Samuel Marsden arrived in 1814 to establish his Church Missionary Society

mission, tensions still simmered. He invited chiefs from Whangaroa and the Bay of Islands aboard his ship, the

Active, gave them gifts and asked them to ensure peace between their people.

‘Each chief saluted the other,’ Marsden wrote, ‘and then went around to each one pressing their noses together.’

They also assured him that they would never harm another European.

Travel advisory

For some Europeans the Boyd incident put New Zealand in the ‘avoid if at all possible’ category. A pamphlet

circulating in Europe warned sailors off the ‘Cannibal Isles’ – ‘touch not that cursed shore lest you these

Cannibals pursue’

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13 Musket Wars and Maori migration

Key Idea: The opportunities presented by European contact saw an escalation in inter-tribal warfare and Maori

migration.

Keywords

Musket- single barrelled guns

Utu- revenge, reciprocity

Mana- prestige, power

Taua muru- war party

Traditional Maori warfare

• The Maori concept of utu dominated tribal society. Traditional conflicts occurred over resources (eg.

land) and women.

• There was a ‘climate of insecurity’ in the North Island.

Impact of Europeans on Maori warfare

• Rivalry developed between tribes over the access to Europeans.

• Mana was derived from control over Europeans and access to the trade goods that Europeans

provided.

• A number of tribes, for example Te Arawa and Ngati Maniapoto, relocated to the coast in an attempt

to get closer to the coast for access to Europeans and trade.

• Muskets were the key item in both rivalry and conflict.

• Following the fall of Napoleon there was a glut of muskets and many reached Sydney.

• Hongi Hika purchased c.400 muskets in Sydney on his return trip from London.

Musket Wars

• Started with the taua muru of Ngapuhi under Hongi to the tribes of Auckland, the Coromandel and

Waikato (1821). These were largely in response to earlier tribal disputes.

• Used the internal waterways of the North Island to transport warriors throughout the country.

• Ngapuhi dominated the early exchanges due to their monopoly of Europeans and muskets.

• Ngati Toa under the leadership of Te Rauparaha carried out a mass migration from Kawhia to the

bottom of the North Island (Kapiti Coast.)

• From here they carried out a series of raids to the South Island.

Impact of the Musket Wars

• C. 60 000 Maori were killed, enslaved or displaced – over half of the population.

• A balance of power was finally reached once all tribes had acquired a similar amount of muskets.

• Some historians argue that a reduction in levels of warfare began when this ‘balance’ was reached.

• Tribes expanded, migrated or retreated according to the impact of the conflicts on them

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Review. Using this book and other sources answer the following questions

Raiding Parties in the 1820s

1. What tribes participated extensively in the ‘raids’ of the 1820s?

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

2. Which tribe’s journeys covered the widest expanse of territory?

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

3. State some similarities and differences between pre and post-European inter-tribal warfare.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

4. What was one key factor in Ngapuhi’s dominance of warfare in the early 1820s?

____________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

Te Rauparaha’s Kapiti Stronghold

5. In diagram form, demonstrate the tribal dynamics of Maori society by showing the interaction between

iwi during the southern migration of Ngati Toa.

6. What was the outcome of the battle at Waiorua (Kapiti Island) in 1824?.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

Resettling Cook Strait

7. Which tribal allies did Ngati Toa (Te Rauparaha) look towards for a tribal alliance? Why do you think

they did this?

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

8. Which tribe migrated to the Chatham Islands for settlement?

____________________________________________________________________________________

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Raiding Te Waiponamu

9. What were the key reasons for the raids of northern tribes to the South Island?

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

10. Describe the path, and outcome, of the journey of Te Puoho to conquer the South Island.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

The selective acquisition of new skills and goods to pursue traditional goals - the tribal wars.

1. Tribal warfare… Musket warfare occurred very late in the Contact Period, only after 1812-13. Before

contact, Maori warfare had been seasonal, fought in March, with few casualties. Killing in war had

always been an epic event, the foundation event for many lineages. The new technology demanded

slaves to work to produce goods for exchange. Muskets were adapted to existing chiefly rivalries, and

tensions escalated. Warriors had been used to personalised killing, feats of daring and skill. Muskets

made warfare anonymous, the killer unknown and anyone could use a musket to kill.

2. The musket or ‘te pu’ was applied in traditional warfare to achieve an advantage in what Ann

Parsonson terms the ‘pursuit of mana’. For instance, the Nga Puhi chief, Hongi Hika, worked to gain an

early monopoly of this weapon and a trip to England in 1820 (with missionaries) greatly augmented

his supply. He used them to ‘carve out his own niche in the competitive structure’ of Maori society.

This had a snowball effect on tribal demand for te pu as tribes realised the necessity of acquiring fire

power. By some estimates 80,000 Maori were killed, directly or indirectly, in the 1820-30s. Ultimately,

Maori stopped fighting when what Judith Binney calls a ‘balance of terror’ had been achieved.

3. Maori selected specific aspects of European culture to enrich their own way of life…

4. European crops and animals…initially for trade, but ultimately for consumption, changing the diet

(pigs, potatoes), the work routine, providing surpluses and spare time for other activities (warfare).

Horses were in demand.

5. Metal technology…especially nails, axes, adzes and agricultural tools, later the musket. These

products impacted on Maori culture: steel chisels created a renewed interest in carving, steel

agricultural tools revolutionised Maori food production. The musket revolutionised Maori warfare,

triggered feverish intertribal competition for supremacy and survival and caused a period of

extensive migrations. The pursuit of the musket also forced competing tribes to engage in the

commodity market rather than in subsistence and self-sufficiency.

6. Literacy… By the 1830s increasing war-weariness coincided with a keen Maori demand for the skill of

literacy. As with other oral cultures in contact with a literate culture, there was a strong belief that

written words provided access to Pakeha knowledge. Literacy became an important new way of

obtaining mana at the expense of traditional chiefly skills like being a great warrior.

32

Hongi Hika’s axe c. 1828

New Zealand war expedition c. 1820

33

14 New Zealand Before Annexation

Owen, J.M.R. in, W.H. Oliver and B.R. Williams ed. The Oxford History of New Zealand, Wellington, 1981.

1. Who were the European groups who arrived in New Zealand before 1840? (include dates) (p28)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What was the main argument put forward by proponents for British annexation according to Owen? (p28)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Why was this argument inaccurate according to Owen? (p28)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Highlight the sentence that shows Owen’s belief in the reality of ‘fatal impact vs. acculturation’ between Maori

and Europeans. (p28)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

5. How were the missionaries similar to traders? (p36)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Provide two quotes to show the ways in which missionaries were different to traders. (p36)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Highlight the key names, dates and places concerning the three different missionary groups in New Zealand

(p36-37)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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8. What are two arguments put forward for Maori turning to Christianity in the late 1820s? (p37)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

9. Provide direct evidence for Owen’s viewpoint on the main reason for Maori conversion to Christianity

(p38)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

10. In what way did Papahurihia demonstrate an amalgamation between Maori and European beliefs? (p38)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

11. Highlight the important technological changes to Maori society bought about by contact with Europeans.

(p39-40)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________

12. Explain the meaning of the quote ‘But, formidable as these changes were, they took place within a Maori

framework of values representing continuity with pre-European Maori ways rather than innovation.’ (p40)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

13. What does Owen say about the regional variation of contact and its impact on race relations? (p40)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

14. What was the affect of the reports to Britain, written by Marsden and Busby, concerning New Zealand?

(p41)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________

35

15. Write a paragraph summarising Owen’s account of the nature of early contact in New Zealand. Particularly

comment on Fatal Impact and/or acculturation.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

15 Richard (Dicky) Barrett

?-1847 TRADER, WHALER, INTERPRETER, HOTEL OWNER

Richard (Dicky) Barrett's date and place of birth, and his parents' names, are unknown. It is

possible that he was born in Durham or London, in England. His colourful, readable journal and

his connection in Durham with the family of William Fox, later premier of New Zealand, throw

doubt on the assumption that he lacked education and polish. He sailed from Rotherhithe at

the age of 16 as a crewmember on a trading ship.

After four years' trading in the Pacific, Barrett had become mate and shareholder in the 60 ton

schooner Adventure, which in 1828 he and Captain Jacky Love brought to New Zealand,

expecting less commercial competition than elsewhere. Their trading was typical -clothes and

blankets, muskets and powder, tobacco, razors and rum, barley and corn, loaded in Sydney,

were discharged into their storehouses at Kororareka (Russell), Queen Charlotte Sound and

Port Nicholson (Wellington). The goods were bartered for pigs, flax and potatoes, which were

sold in Sydney.

Barrett's connection with Te Ati Awa of Taranaki began when two canoes paddled by 40

warriors and commanded by the Te Ati Awa leaders Honiana Te Puni-kokopu and Te

Wharepouri, expressly on the lookout for a trader on the Sydney run, intercepted the

Adventure near Cook Strait on its second trans- Tasman voyage. Fearing their traditional

enemies, Waikato, Te Ati Awa considered that their survival depended on an association with

Europeans who could supply arms. Barrett, fluent and fearless and a shrewd trader, keen to

expand his connections, inspected flax and pigs at Ngamotu, at present day New Plymouth, and

Te Ati Awa, pressing for a trading post permanently occupied by Pakeha to ensure both

prosperity and preservation, presented wives to him and Love. In 1828 Barrett married

Wakaiwa Rawinia Lavinia), or Rangi, grand-daughter of Tautara, niece of Te Puni and sister of Te

36

Wharepouri. A Christian marriage service was performed at Ngamotu on 28 March 1841, when

the Wesleyan missionary Charles Creed first visited Taranaki.

The Adventure was named the Tohora and Barrett became Tiki Parete. He was not however,

absorbed into the pa and dependent on the tribe; his equality in the association with Te Ati

Awa was uncommon for the 1820s. He built houses, dressed his daughters in European

dresses, supervised crop farming, extended flax plantations and engaged in trade with the

Sydney market. The Adventure was wrecked at her moorings at Ngamotu after a return voyage

form the Sydney market in May 1828, and Barrett sold its cargo to a passing English trader; this

was the first direct shipment of goods from Taranaki to England.

The English trader warned of a Waikato raid and the invasion came in 1831-32. After the siege

and capture by Waikato of Pukerangiora, Te Ati Awa withdrew to Otaka pa, Ngamotu. Behind

emergency earthworks and pallisades, outnumbered, overcrowded and suffering food and

water shortages, they withstood the siege, and the mana of Barrett and Love was greatly

increased. Love had first sighted the invading canoes, and Barrett's decoy attack had exposed

Waikato to cannon fire from guns salvaged from the Adventure. Victorious but fearing reprisals,

Te Ati Awa abandoned the villages and cultivations of their homeland and trekked overland,

with Barrett, to Port Nicholson.

Barrett continued to trade, buying a new schooner, building a raupo warehouse and importing

farm implements and whaling gear; he then established a whaling station in Queen Charlotte

Sound. When, in August 1839, the Tory arrived with the first New Zealand Company settlers,

Barrett was engaged by Colonel William Wakefield as an interpreter, and piloted the ship to

Pito-one (Petone). He was able to overcome resistance to land selling, negotiating the sale of

land at Port Nicholson, Queen Charlotte Sound and Taranaki. Many of these purchases were

subsequently disallowed by government land claims commissioners.

With the purchases accomplished, Barrett gave land and timber for a courthouse in Port

Nicholson, offered employment to settlers and engaged a skilled tanner and brewer to develop

his business enterprises in the new colony. He suggested that barrister William Fox be

persuaded to emigrate to help settle land claims. Company gratitude was expressed in a bonus

to establish Barrett's Hotel, the civic centre of Wellington until it was taken over for

government offices in 1849. When losses in whaling deprived him of his hotel in 1841, he led a

party of Te Ati Awa back to Taranaki. There he helped establish settlers in New Plymouth and

began cattle farming, while his boats chased whales and transported flax to Port Nicholson.

Barrett died on 23 February 1847 after a whaling accident, and was buried in Wahitapu

cemetery in New Plymouth, beside his daughter Mary. The image of this convivial English trader

has lived on in Wellington folklore for a century and a half in the names of Barrett Reef and

Barrett's Hotel.

37

16 Map of New Zealand showing tribal locations

38

39

40